📚 Reading Research Papers is Like Unpacking Luggage

Imagine you are given a luggage bag with the following instruction: "There is stuff in it that you may or may not find useful."

You don't know what's in the bag, and you won't know if the stuff in it is of any use until you open it.

Now you can take the bag and dump all of its contents in the middle of your living room. You would surely unpack the bag. But you may end up damaging any fragile items in it.

Even if you don't damage anything, you would've created a mess for yourself. This would make it difficult to figure our what's useful for you and what's not.

Your aim is not to simply unpack the bag, but to unpack it in a manner that you find something useful.

This is like taking a research article and reading it cursorily. You would "read" the article, but you wouldn't know what's useful in it for you and what's not.

Your aim is not to simply read the article, but to read it in a manner that you find something useful.

Instead of dumping the contents of the bag all at once, how about you carefully inspect it from the outside? You can gently press or shake it to figure out what kind of stuff there may be in it.

If there are books and clothes in it, you won't hear any sound. But if there are pots and pans in it, you will hear some kind of a sound.

This is like carefully reading the abstract of an article. You want to pay close attention to the abstract because it tells you what's in the article.

Open the bag after you have examined it closely from the outside. Suppose the bag was packed by someone like my wife. It contains books, clothes, pots, spices, make-up, and much more.

Below is a photo of three bags we brought from Karachi, Pakistan to Odense, Denmark.

Divide the stuff into two types:

Type 1. Things you know what to do with (books, clothes, etc.).
Type 2. Things you don't know what to do with (spices, a rubber ring, in the photo above).

Type 1 things don't need your attention anymore, but Type 2 things do.

This is like taking notes as you read through the article the first time.

Divide your notes into two types:

Type 1: Ideas you understand
Type 2: Ideas you don't understand

Type 1 ideas don't need your attention anymore, but Type 2 ideas do.

Out of the Type 2 things that you don't know what to do with, take one item at a time. See if there are any labels you could read on these item.

Make two piles:

Pile 1: Things you have figured out
Pile 2: Things you haven't figured out

This is like figuring out ideas/concepts in an article that are a bit challenging. You will need to re-read to figure out these ideas/concepts.

As you re-read, make two columns in your notebook:

Column 1: Ideas you have figured out
Column 2: Ideas you haven't figures out

Now in Pile 2, you may have some items that you still don't know what to do with.

Say, a rubber ring in the bag on the left in the above photo. It has no labels and you don't know what it could be used for. You can look it up on the internet or ask someone about it.

This is like a particularly difficult idea in a research article. You don't know where it comes from and what it's about. You can look it up on the internet or ask someone about it.

So, you looked up the rubber ring on the internet and after an hour or so realized it's a gasket for a pressure cooker. Along the way, you fell down the rabbit hole of the type of cuisine that needs a pressure cooker.

Repeat this procedure with the next item in your Pile 2.

This is like looking up a challenging idea/concept and falling down a rabbit hole or related information.

Repeat this procedure with the next item in your Column 2: Ideas you haven't figured out.

Keep at it and gradually you'll figure out every item in your Pile 2. Similarly, you'll figure out every challenging idea/concept in your Column 2.

Reading research papers needs a lot of time and patience. Over the last year I have been testing AI-powered apps that can help you speed up the reading process.

I tested these apps and wrote step-by-step guides about how to use them. These and several other guides are part of my tutorial, “Become an Efficient Academic Writer with AI Apps.“

The tutorial is divided into 14 modules and has 250+ slides.

It’s being used by more than 1,500 academics including those at universities like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford.

You can get the tutorial by clicking on the link below:

That’s it for this week. I’ll see you next week.

Until then keep writing.